IIA. Related Applications
There are no applications related hereto heretofore filed in this or in any foreign country.
IIB. Field of Invention
This invention relates to partition control devices, and more particularly to a device for positionally maintaining a stage setting and releasing the stage setting in response to a remotely generated electric signal.
IIC. Background and Description of Prior Art
Stage setting release devices, commonly known as Kabuki devices, are used in the entertainment and media industries to positionally maintain depending stage settings, such as curtains, back drops, banners and scenery changes and to release the stage settings on cue and to open performances, change backgrounds and reveal new products. Although vertical drops are most common, stage settings may also be tensioned between biasing means at one edge portion and Kabuki devices at the opposing edge portion, so that upon release by the Kabuki devices the stage setting moves toward the biasing means horizontally across a stage.
Known Kabuki devices provide a push/pull solenoid and an associated elongately movable pin that are carried within the chamber of a peripherally defined body. The body defines a slot in the surface facing the direction of release of the stage setting in which a sector of a metal ring interconnected to an edge portion of the stage setting is carried. The elongately movable pin is interconnected to the solenoid at a first end portion. The second end and medial portions of the elongately movable pin extend transversely across the slot and through the medial void portion of the metal ring carried therein, so that the metal ring is supported directly upon the elongately movable pin. Actuation of the solenoid moves the solenoid arm which responsively moves the elongately movable pin toward the first end to a position whereat the pin no longer extends through the metal ring to release the metal ring from the slot to responsively release the stage setting.
Known Kabuki devices have various drawbacks and are prone to intermittent failures. Carrying the metal ring directly upon the elongately movable pin is a frequent cause of such failures because the weight of the stage setting, and the forces applied thereby, are transverse to movement of the elongately movable pin. These transverse forces increase friction that tend to cause the pin to bind, occasionally preventing pin movement and release of the metal ring and the stage setting. The binding may be exacerbated by use, as well as by misalignment of the solenoid arm and the pin. Increased friction also requires more electrical power for the solenoid to move the pin. Precision manufacturing is therefore essential, and rough handling of known Kabuki devices, during transport or otherwise, may decrease efficiency and reliability by altering the axial alignment of the solenoid arm and elongately movable pin.
Known Kabuki devices are also difficult to load because the elongately movable pin is not easily accessible. Generally a screwdriver or other thin elongate item must be used to move the pin rearwardly so that the metal ring may be placed in the slot and about the pin. Additionally there is no ready means to test whether the electrical circuit, created when plural Kabuki devices are interconnected in series, is complete, other than activating the device which releases the metal ring and the stage setting. Such testing is impractical once the devices and stage settings have been installed and raised for operation.
The present invention seeks to overcome these drawbacks to known Kabuki devices by providing an improved Kabuki device that is more reliable and durable, is easy to load and has an electrical circuit that may be tested without releasing the stage settings.
My improved Kabuki device releasably carries one metal ring of a stage setting, in a triangular ring chamber that communicates with a slot defined in the body on a ring support pin carried at one end portion of a spring biased pivoting lever arm. The pivoting lever arm provides mechanical advantage to the solenoid arm to ensure reliably consistent pin motion, eliminates friction caused by the transverse forces of the stage setting on the pin and reduces the electrical current necessary for the solenoid to release the stage setting.
A finger hole defined in an end cap of the body, adjacent the lever arm, allows manipulation of the lever arm to simplify loading my Kabuki release device. Interconnecting interlocking wiring connectors allow plural Kabuki devices to be interconnected with one another in series. A power indicator test light is releasably attachable to each series connected group of Kabuki devices to test the connectivity of each series circuit without activating the solenoids.
My invention does not reside in any one of these identified features individually, but rather in the synergistic combination of all of its structures, which give rise to the functions necessarily flowing therefrom as hereinafter specified and claimed.